Still Life in English Grey
by Anozira
Summary: Three, and maybe more, One shots. A portrait of a moment in the friendship of two remarkable men. Note: Chapter 3 has been removed and placed in a more appropriate place.
1. Chapter 1

_So I seem to be chronically unable to finish a story. I WILL continue trying to finish some of the better ones, but for now I have developed the perfect remedy to my problem...the One Shot! Please forgive the artsy, rather pompous title. There is a reason behind it, and if you care, see the author's note at the end. Please Review. _

Still-Life in English Grey

Holmes was draped over the settee when I came back from a long day of work at the hospital. An outbreak of influenza had left London on its knees and I had decided to do my part to aid her suffering population. The criminal classes, however, were unusually quiet in the face of this far more natural killer, and Holmes had plunged into a black mood. The boredom weighed on him heavily and he refused to eat or take an interest in his chemicals and his violin, both of which he often used to combat the tedium of inactivity. I hadn't seen him so depressed in a long time and it worried me. For the first time in months, I feared he might return to the cocaine habit that had too often served as his final recourse in the past.

"Good evening, Holmes," I said pleasantly, trying vainly to combat the grim atmosphere of the room with cheery words. Holmes lifted a long white hand listlessly in my general direction and said nothing.

"Have you no brilliant observations to make concerning my day?" I asked, a feeble second try at forcing the sun to shine from behind the dark rain clouds. Holmes shook his head back and forth without even bothering to lift it or look at me. He still had not spoken a word.

Defeated, I turned to inspect my correspondence which lay waiting on the table. Mrs. Hudson entered quietly with a tray of tea and a plate of her excellent scones. The smell wafted into the room tantalizingly and my mouth watered. I realized with a start that I had not eaten anything since breakfast, having been too busy with patients to take a lunch break.

"Oh, good afternoon Dr. Watson. You slipped by me, I didn't hear you come in."

"I came home just a few minutes ago, Mrs. Hudson."

"Would you like some tea? You look positively famished."

"Well I am a little peckish and I can never say no to one of your scones."

"Thank goodness for that or I should feel very under appreciated," she replied with a significant look in Holmes's direction. She moved closer to me and spoke in a quiet, conspiratorial tone. I had no doubt Holmes could hear every word we said, but that mattered little.

"He hasn't eaten anything in a day and a half. Not even so much as a bit of toast. He'll make himself sick if he keeps it up. He hasn't moved from that couch all day, Dr. Watson, and hasn't had anything but half a cup of tea for breakfast. I haven't seen him quite so down in a very long while."

"I am concerned as well Mrs. Hudson, something must be done." She nodded and bustled over to the settee as if in response to my statement.

"Have some tea, Mr. Holmes, it's nearing 5:00 and you haven't had a thing to eat all day. I've made some scones fresh and if you don't grab yourself one Dr. Watson will eat them all," she winked at me and continued to cajole him. At last Holmes turned to glare at her.

"Desist, woman, I am not on the brink of starvation. The human body can go several days without drink and longer without food."

His remark was delivered in a scathing, icy tone. It proved to me more clearly than any other action that he was not himself. Holmes did have a certain disdain for the fair sex in general, but he was always courteous to them, especially to Mrs. Hudson. Mrs. Hudson, however, is no frail woman, but a force to be reckoned with. She is a master of patience and perseverance, and she has been long accustomed to dealing with Holmes's strange moods.

"Very well then, but when you decide to eat like a man rather than a stray cat let me know and I'll make you some supper." She set the tray on the table and poured a cup of tea which she carefully placed within easy reach of the settee in case Holmes changed his mind. Gathering a few odds and ends, she smiled at me and left the room as quietly as she had come. Silence settled over our quarters again.

I sat to eat one of the scones she had brought, but as I did so my mind wandered over my conversation with our intrepid landlady. Certainly Holmes had been in moods like this before, but I had assumed those had been brought on partly by the cocaine. What, then, was causing this sudden depression? A lack of cases certainly, but he had been inactive for longer periods of time without such a pronounced reaction. What was different? Had he gone back to the cocaine and was concealing this from me? Was he ill? Could some secret tragedy be eating away at him with these results? I sighed and gave up my fruitless speculation. I lacked sufficient data, as Holmes was wont to say.

My correspondence was very ordinary and did not keep me occupied for long. Soon I found myself pacing the room in an endeavor to drive away the oppressive feeling of depression that seemed to permeate the room. I was debating taking an early dinner at my club when suddenly Holmes spoke. After so long a silence the sound of his voice sounded strange to me, but his words were even stranger.

"Watson, what made you decide to marry Mary?"

"Pardon, Holmes?"

"How did you determine that you loved Mary enough to marry her?" He repeated irritably.

I stammered uncertain of how to respond. "Why do you wish to know Holmes?"

His tone softened abruptly. "I am merely curious. Love is an emotion I have no experience with and I hoped to gain insight from you, whom I know to have been in love at least once."

"Well it isn't easy to describe. To tell you the truth I don't know how I knew I loved her." I considered for a while in silence. Holmes had sat up and was looking at me with something like his old sparkle in his eyes. I was baffled as to what could have caused the transformation, but relieved none the less. I decided to allow him to relax into this new mood before pressing food on him.

"One day I was standing with her at her door contemplating the ride home alone in the cab. It was a cold, rainy night, and the journey home would be miserable. You were still busy with her case and I knew you would either be out or shut in your room with your tobacco and I did not relish returning home cold and alone. I suppose in that moment I first began consider marriage. After that, every time I saw her it was not far from my mind and every evening saying goodbye grew more difficult. The more we saw each other the more I grew sure in my belief that we would make a happy couple. She shared my view for when I proposed she consented. Does that answer your question?"

"I see why your readers are so attached to your stories. You are quite a talented storyteller, Watson." By now he had curled up catlike at the end of the settee and looked very much like the Holmes whose company I so looked forward to of an evening. I poured a fresh cup of tea for myself and brought the tray to Holmes.

"Will you have some tea? It seems ungentlemanly to put Mrs. Hudson's hard work to waste."

He chuckled deep within his throat, a rare sound and one I always found pleasing and soothing. "My dear Watson you are craftier than you give yourself credit for. I will allow myself to be manipulated, though." He took the cup of tea and drank it quickly, so I replaced it with another and pressed a scone into his hand. He nibbled at the scone, but he took deep, satisfied sips of the tea. Suddenly he turned his piercing gaze on me.

"You say you loved Mary. Do you still love her?" I could not fathom why he suddenly was expressing so much interest in my marriage. He scarcely mentioned it while we were married. I shrugged it off to his eccentricity and turned my mind to his question. "Yes, I believe I do, but differently. I would find it difficult to enter into a serious relationship with another woman."

"Because it would be a betrayal of Mary?"

"No, because I simply would not wish to." I fell silent. How does one explain the intricacies of love to someone as rational and level-headed as Holmes? "I am afraid, Holmes, that love is not something I can explain rationally. It hits like lightning and leaves its scars after it has gone. There is no sense in it, no hidden pattern to find and expose, no logic. I envy you in a way. Sometimes I would like to strip it from my life altogether." He laughed again, but this time it was strange and bitter, not his deep chuckle or sudden bark that always took me by surprise.

"Oh Watson, no man is immune to love, as much as I would like to think that I am." And with that strange comment, he left the room, leaving the scone virtually untouched and the teacup half full. I sighed. Holmes was as unpredictable as a summer storm when he was in one of these moods. Perhaps later he would eat something.

_A note on the title: I thought the name "still-life" was particularly apt because this story captures a small, short moment in the life and friendship of these two men. Anyone who has ever lived in England knows what I mean by English Grey. Think of a rainy, cold January morning on the Cornish coast. Grey in the sky, grey stretching out over the water, and perhaps a few grey cliffs between you and the ocean. Deep of me, isn't it? It's 1 am, that's my excuse. Don't laugh at me. Anozira_


	2. Chapter 2

Study in Gold

Many days later I sat by the bow window in the sitting room re-reading one of my favorite novels in the rare sunlight of an autumn afternoon. In this weather even the dirty grey buildings that lined Baker Street glowed as though they were made of gold. The beautiful day combined with a pleasant book and a quiet room had put me in an uncommonly good mood. Mrs. Hudson, too, had been in high spirits all day. I could still hear her singing hymns below as she prepared the evening meal.

In Baker Street, however, such moments of quiet peace are fleeting indeed. True to form, my paradise was shattered in the next instant by the sound of the street door opening with a protesting groan and then slamming shut. Footsteps rapidly ascended the 17 stairs and presently the door to the sitting room burst open, revealing a rather inebriated laborer. He leaned against the door jam with a rather impertinent grin on his face, as if he had sprung there, mushroom-like, in wake of the recent rains. I rose to shoe him out, but he interrupted me, declaring in a familiar drawl,

"All of London has gone on holiday to enjoy the weather, nobleman and criminal alike!"

I laughed as Holmes entered the room with a flourish. His tendency toward the dramatic greatly increased the longer he was forced to remain inactive, waiting for a suitable problem to come his way. He had been waiting for a long, long time now. I had high hopes, though, that a proper mystery would soon land on our doorstep. The influenza outbreak had died down considerably, and Holmes often declared that winter was the best time of year for crime. The more creative criminals, for reasons known only to themselves, all seemed to prefer to act in the colder months.

"We really must find you a suitable mystery, Holmes, before you startle the life out of Mrs. Hudson with your charades," I chided him gently

"Our landlady is a formidable woman. I doubt the intrusion of a drunk factory worker would noticeably upset her equilibrium," He replied calmly, wiping off makeup with a rag he had draped casually over the deal-topped table the previous day. I prayed silently that nothing terribly toxic had come in contact with the fabric in the interim.

"How have you been occupying yourself, Holmes?"

"Oh doing this and that. Reviving old relationships, sparking new acquaintances. I have been neglecting the lower ends of London of late and this morning resolved to take advantage of the good weather and rectify that error all in one fell swoop. I spent the morning idling in a pub with some fascinating fellows. Ruffians, the lot of them, but not as rough as they make themselves out to be if one cares to scratch the surface a little. See here, that tell-tale spot of clay on my right hem? Where in all of London is there clay of that particular color, Watson? Soho, and nowhere else!"

His speech dwindled into tuneless whistling while he concentrated on removing the whiskers he had applied with gum. For a moment he disappeared into his bedroom, still whistling, and when he reappeared, he was Holmes again, dressed in proper slacks, a crisp, clean white shirt, and the old mouse-colored dressing gown. He settled down in his arm chair, packing his clay pipe with tobacco. As he lit it, he looked to me with a smile and remarked, "Wiggins bids you a bright good day, his words exactly. He asked me to ensure that you weren't working yourself to an early grave in the midst of the influenza epidemic"

"And a bright good day to Wiggins. He can lay his mind at rest; I believe the worst is over." I answered. Holmes was ever coddling the scruffy boys he hired as an "irregular police force" during his cases. Many of them, however, had become very intelligent lads, and Wiggins was, without a doubt, the smartest of the bunch. I liked him and for unknown reasons, he seemed to regard me highly as well.

Holmes had relapsed into a reverie, his unfocused grey eyes staring in the direction of the bow window. He was curled comfortably in the chair, smoke circling his head like an oddly shaped dark halo. He seemed content for the first time in many days. I wondered idly what had brought about the sudden change. Had he gotten a case after all?

"You seem to be in an uncommonly good mood, Holmes." I prompted him.

"The sun is shining at last from behind the rain clouds," he replied ambiguously.

"You have a case?"

He laughed, "No, not so bright as that. No I spoke literally."

I thought for a minute, trying to find the hidden meaning behind his simple statement. What was it that had Holmes in such good humor? Surely more than the weather, Holmes was not a man to let rain affect him so deeply. Finally, I gave it up for hopeless.

"You confound me, Holmes." I replied shaking my head.

"I am glad of it." He shot me a blindingly bright smile. A true smile from Holmes is a very rare thing and it hits like summer lighting: one quick flash and then it is gone without a trace. It left me dazzled slightly, staring at Holmes fish-like. He looked away thoughtfully, "Were I to lose the ability to confound you our relationship would be quite different, I believe."

"Certainly it would be a great deal less confusing." I replied. An interesting thought, what would our friendship be like were we of equal mental abilities? I gave the thought no more than an instant of contemplation, without his logic and intellect, Holmes would be some other man, a very ordinary, common man.

"Relationships are always confusing. And I believe without the ability to dissimulate and confound they would become much more so." Holmes picked up a newspaper from the floor near his chair, opened to the agony columns and discarded the rest carelessly on the floor. The conversation seemed to be at an end. However, after a moment Holmes added, "I believe ours would become a great deal more confusing if neither of us were able to confound the other." I waited for him to elaborate, but no more was forthcoming.

I sighed and shook my head. Ambiguity was another aspect that seemed to categorize our relationship. Perhaps it added an air of mystery to our lives I thought whimsically. It was the closest thing to a mystery we had these days. Why on earth was London so quiet? I glanced over at Holmes again briefly. He was engrossed his newspaper, his keen gaze seemed to bore through the paper on his lap. It was the same attention he reserved for clues in his cases or his chemical experiments. As my brain wandered, I wondered what it would feel like to have such a gaze directed solely at me. The idea seemed dizzying, unnerving and exciting all at once, an odd feeling. I pushed the thought away resolutely, rejoicing instead that I would not have to worry about finding a distraction today. Holmes seemed to have provided an alternative to the cocaine for himself.

Belatedly I remembered that I had been reading. The sun had dipped lower, now. In a short while it would be behind the buildings and gone for the night, and perhaps the week. Re-opening the forgotten novel, I turned again to revel in the momentary peace and the fading sun while they lasted.


End file.
